Turn Off Your Smartphone Camera’s GPS to Protect Your Privacy

If you don’t like to broadcast your whereabouts, you’ve likely got it under control: No Foursquare for you, no “adding to your Photo Map” on Instagram. You’re good, right? Maybe. Or you could be inadvertently telling the world your location every time you send out a photo. What do Facebook snaps, tweeted candids, MMS messages to your plumber, and almost every other photo-based form of digital communication have in common? The metadata embedded in your smartphone’s photos.

You can quickly fix this by taking a dive into your device’s settings.

For iPhone owners, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services. There you can flip the master switch to turn Location Services on or off entirely. If you’d prefer to keep these on — as you would if use map, navigation, or compass apps — scroll down and flip the button for the Camera to off.

Android owners can accomplish the same feat by opening the camera app, going into the settings, and switching off the GPS tagging option (in this case, it’s a location pin icon you can tap).

Voila, now the only ones who know every place you’re visiting and snapping photos are you, and our lovely PRISM overlords.